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This chapter probes the issue of capital mobility and its implications in the context of the globalization of the fresh fruit sector. In particular, it explores the relationship between productive capital and labor in two different Latin American regions: the Northeast of Brazil and Patagonia in Argentina. Employing a comparative approach, it studies the impact that the insertion of local production into global circuits has on local firms and labor. These relatively culturally and geographically distant locations are affected by similar phenomena created by the globalization of agrifood. Relevant among then are the marginalization of labor and a weak labor structure. While there has been the growth of local firms, this growth has not erased important weaknesses.

The provision of food is a critical starting point from which to understand the articulations between production and consumption locales. In research carried in Northeastern Brazil, we have found that increasingly local spaces of production and distribution of food are under tight control by external (retailer) regulations. From the choosing of plots, to land uses, to labour contracting, to cultural, environmental and packing practices, there is much evidence that food quality is an issue under view. On the other, there are widely known concerns about food safety and food security, which, in the Brazilian case, is shown through Hunger Zero – a governmental project to alleviate poverty. In this chapter, I will argue for the relevance of exploring the dynamics of food by looking at local markets, agricultural and supermarkets units, government and labour strategies, as developed in the Northeastern region. Based on case studies and related literature, the argument is that the distribution of food around the world is very much a combination of transnational corporations actions and local development strategies; and without exploring the possible contradiction here, it would not be possible to understand how packing houses, state distribution units as well as agricultural and retailer distribution units would come into the local development agenda, contributing to the making of quality food to the world's consumers. Several case studies developed by our team of researchers will illuminate the analyses.

New Zealand and Australian agri-food industries are being restructured both as a consequence of the extension of neoliberal policy settings and as a result of the increasing influence of the global supermarket sector. In the EU, supermarkets have sought to standardise and harmonise compliance, with their influence being felt well beyond European boundaries. EurepGAP (a European standard for ‘Good Agricultural Practices’) is an example of an emerging ‘audit culture’ where strict adherence to set rules of operation emerges as the basis for accreditation of goods and services. It represents the trend towards private sector standardization and assurance schemes, and provides an example of the growing importance of the supermarket sector in sanctioning the on-ground activities that occur in the production and processing of farm-derived outputs.

This chapter highlights the influence of EurepGAP protocols in the reorganisation of the agri-food industries of New Zealand and Australia. It argues that – for industries such as vegetable and fruit production, where Europe is the final destination – compliance with EurepGAP standards has largely become essential. In this sense, EurepGAP has emerged as the standard among producers who wish to export their products. The chapter concludes with an assessment of EurepGAP as a form of global agri-food governance that demonstrates a strong relationship between new audit cultures and neoliberal forms of trade regulation. In both Australia and New Zealand, some production sectors have rapidly adopted EurepGAP – despite extra costs, reduced choices over crop management and a lingering sense of resentment at the internal imposition of yet another production audit – primarily as a solution to the politics of risk in the context of high levels of exposure to market requirements under neoliberalism. The implications of this for Antipodean farming are considered in detail.

Food Industries have to cater a plethora of consumers having variety of tastes. For sustaining in such environment companies create their unique selling point and big data helps them to analyze market situation for such purpose. In this book chapter, the supply chain of fruits and vegetables and the post-harvest losses encountered at each stage in absence of data analytics is discussed. This can be an opportunity for the food industries to reduce food loss and gain better returns on investment by going for a digital transformation. Companies combine big data with technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to get faster and more personalized experiences. This chapter includes comparative case studies of food and retail sector for better understanding of the outcome.

Considering sustainability and resilience together is crucial in food supply chain (FSC) management, as it ensures a balanced approach that meets environmental, economic and social needs while maintaining the system's capacity to withstand disruptions. Towards this, a multi-objective optimisation model is proposed in this study to create an integrated sustainable and resilient FSC. The proposed model employs four objective functions – each representing a dimension of sustainability and one for resilience and utilises an augmented ϵ-constraint method for solving. The findings highlight the interplay between sustainability aspects and resilience, illustrating that overemphasis on any single dimension can adversely affect others. Further, the proposed model is applied to the case of Indian mango pulp supply chain and several inferences are derived. The proposed model would assist decision-makers in making a well-balanced choice based on sustainability and resilience considerations.

This paper documents the case of La Verde, a producer cooperative in Andalusia, Southern Spain, whose members grow and sell organic fruit and vegetables. Fieldwork data reveal a range of assessments and practices with respect to just price. Historical experiences of working as day laborers, with little access to cash or other resources informs the members’ radical political views on money, prices, and markets. These ideas modulate exchanges at the local level, and in their political networks. However, working their own land and selling a prized product allows them to generate good market returns from private shopkeepers in cities. The paper proposes that for a price to be considered just, criteria for commensuration, or equivalence between a price and the perceived value of an object must adhere, but adjudications about this vary according to the relationship between exchangers. Rather than an objective just price, the paper considers assessments and judgments about the relation between prices and justice to be contextually defined, contested, and negotiated.